


Safe Shadows

by fredbassett



Series: Safe Shadows [1]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: Lester has had a bad day and Danny decides it’s time his boss went home.





	Safe Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from one of the poems in A Dream of Foxes by Lucille Clifton.

“Come on, guv’nor, time to call it a day.”

Lester looked up, trying – and failing – to ignore the crashing headache that had taken up residence in his skull during the first five minutes of his most recent conversation with the demon from hell currently masquerading as the new Home Secretary. That had been an hour ago and the pain had been steadily getting worse since then.

Danny Quinn was lounging in the doorway of his office, his checked shirt hanging open to reveal a torn and dusty teeshirt. There was also a rip in the thigh of his jeans that Lester didn’t recall seeing earlier in the day. There hadn’t been an anomaly call-out, so it looked very much like Danny had been spending some more quality time in his favourite ventilation shaft.

“I have – at the last count – 35 emails to answer, nine expense claims to revile, two reports to write and…”

“…a partridge in a pear tree?”

“Ah, that explains the irritating clucking noise I’ve been hearing all evening.”

“I’ll borrow soldier boy’s favourite gun and shoot it for you, if you want.”

“You’re all heart, Quinn. Haven’t you got a home to go to?”

“Yes, but my central heating’s on the blink and it’s bloody freezing tonight. I was thinking of kipping in the bunkroom.”

Lester rolled his eyes and winced as pain lanced through his skull. “Go home, Danny, and call an engineer first thing tomorrow morning. Or better still, bribe Norman. That’s what everyone else around here does.”

Danny pushed himself upright. “You don’t look too bright, guv. Come on, sod the emails and the rest of the crap. It’ll all wait.”

Lester was about to reply when a particularly vicious spike of pain seemed determined to forge an entirely new neural pathway between his temples. He closed his eyes and waited for the world to stop tilting on its axis.

“You’re having a bloody migraine, aren’t you? My sister use to get ‘em. Come on, I’ll drive you home. You’re in no fit state to get there under your own steam by the look of you.”

A protest died in his throat as more pain blossomed behind Lester’s eyes. Danny was right. Unless he wanted his Mercedes to get up close and personal with a lamppost, he wouldn’t be driving himself anywhere in a hurry. He groped in his jacket pocket for the car keys and tossed them to Danny. “It’s insured for any driver and you can take it home with you afterwards, but put one single scratch on it, Quinn, and it’ll be coming out of your wages.”

Danny’s widest grin was all the answer he got to that little pleasantry.

* * * * *

Danny had no sooner driven out through the checkpoint at the main gate when the snow started to fall. Great big wet flakes landed on the windscreen and stayed there for a moment before being flicked away by the wipes.

“It won’t settle,” he predicted more confidently that he actually felt.

Lester started out of the window at the dancing flakes and grunted something that might well have been, “Don’t crash.”

Ten minutes later, the surface of the road was white and the British public were demonstrating their complete and utter inability to cope with any weather conditions more extreme than light drizzle. After witnessing three minor shunts and four serious skids, the policeman in Danny was itching to start pulling people over and lecturing them on the correct way to drive in snow. To his relief, his companion decided to reduce the wear and tear on his nerves by the simple expedient of keeping his eyes shut, although he did notice Lester pressing hard on an imaginary brake on a couple of occasions.

Much to Danny’s amazement, he reached the garage at the back of Lester’s London mews house without anyone putting an irreparable dent in his next pay packet. The garage doors were electric and slid smoothly open at the press of a button on the key fob, pushing back the covering of snow on the concrete. From the unmarked expanse of white that had greeted them as Danny had turned into the cobbled rear access, Lester was the only person in this exclusive suburb who had been working late.

“You can’t drive home in these conditions, Quinn,” Lester commented, opening his eyes for the first time in the last 15 minutes. “Even your luck won’t hold much longer.”

“I’ll get a cab.”

“My central heating isn’t broken.”

“Good point,” Danny acknowledged. He also had his doubts about leaving Lester alone when the man was so obviously in pain and exhausted, but he kept that to himself. Lester wasn’t a man who advertised his frailties and he wouldn’t appreciate Danny drawing attention to them.

Once inside, Lester shed his coat in the direction of a hook in the downstairs cloakroom and changed his shoes for a pair of very dilapidated sheepskin slippers that looked wholly out of keeping with his hand-made Italian suit. The house was tall and thin, with a cloakroom and utility room on the ground floor and a kitchen and dining room on the next floor. It was all simply but tastefully decorated and, to Danny’s practised eye, bore no signs of occupation by anyone other than Lester himself. More out of habit than anything else, Danny had run a few background checks on his new colleagues when he’d joined the ARC. He knew Lester was married with three kids, but he and his wife had separated, without fuss or acrimony, just over a year ago, and were clearly now living separate lives.

Lester made his way into the kitchen and shook two tablets from a bottle in one of the drawers into his hand, swallowing them with a glass of water. He waved one hand vaguely in the direction of a tall fridge. “Help yourself to anything. If anything looks a hazard to health, bin it. I haven’t spent much time here for the last couple of weeks.”

“Sounds a bit like my place,” Danny grinned. “Got any beer? May as well make the most of not having to drive home.”

“Try the fridge. If not, there’s some in the cupboard in the utility room. I’ll show you the spare room, then if you’ll excuse me, I need to…”

“Crash out,” supplied Danny. “No worries. I won’t be far behind you.”

The spare room was on the third floor of the tall, narrow house. It contained a double bed with a black and white patterned duvet cover, a small sofa covered with a deep red throw and a large, eye-catching modern art painting on the wall over the bed. Danny knew bugger all about art, but there was something intriguing about the swirls of gold, silver and black, with occasional splashes of crimson, that caught his attention. Like everything else in the house that he’d seen so far, if the truth be told. There was a small bathroom next door and, in spite of his headache, Lester was a courteous host, producing a brand new toothbrush, still in its packet, and finding a bathrobe for him, even if it was several sizes too small for him at 6ft1”.

“It’ll be better than nothing,” Lester commented. “Do you need any spare clothes?”

Danny held up the small rucksack he’d grabbed from his locker on the way out of the ARC. “I think I’ve got everything I need, thanks.”

Lester mustered a smile even though he looked fit to drop and left Danny to his own devices.

After a cheese sandwich and a beer, Danny headed back up to the bedroom. It would be the first early night he’d had in longer than he could remember. They’d had a busy few weeks and the added hassle of Christine Johnson and her machinations hadn’t made things any easier. Given a choice, Danny preferred dinosaurs to politicians and the MoD any day. At least you knew where you stood with dinosaurs.

The bed was comfortable, the room was pleasantly warm and, from the look of the heavy coverlet of snow blanketing the bushes in Lester’s small back garden, the roads would be getting close to impassable by now, so holing up for the night had been by far the most sensible idea. No doubt the rows about why there’d been no gritting would already be raging.

Danny turned the bedside light out and was asleep within minutes.

* * * * *

Lester opened his eyes to pleasant darkness in the comfortable cocoon of his duvet. The pain in his head had gone, leaving him tired and a bit disorientated but, thanks to Danny Quinn’s intervention, the migraine hadn’t escalated to a level where it would have been beyond intervention. If that had happened, he might well have ended up calling in sick, something he hadn’t done for more years that he could remember, but it was a salutary warning not to ignore the symptoms in future.

He rolled over in bed, feeling slightly sick. He needed food and he needed it now. The bedside clock showed 03.26 on the luminous display. He wasn’t quite sure what time he’d gone to bed, but he’d probably had just over five hours sleep, certainly enough to make him feel almost human again, and food would complete the return to normality.

After a visit to the bathroom, Lester padded downstairs to the kitchen and filled the kettle without bothering to turn on the light. Moonlight filtered in through the window that overlooked the garden at the rear and glittered on the snow that had settled everywhere. The single streetlamp visible from the window would no doubt have had his kids demanding to go out on a search for Mr Tumnus. If he was lucky, there would be no anomaly to disturb his planned weekend off and if the snow hung around, he might even manage to take them sledging.

A cursory examination of his fridge revealed very little that appealed, but he did find a packet of bacon that was only just out of date. In his university days he’d learned to treat the aftermaths of migraines in the same way as hangovers, so a bacon sandwich would no doubt help to quell the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

With the bacon under the grill and a mug of tea in hand, Lester already was starting to feel better. There was something about snow that brought out the inner child in most people and he was no exception.

“Enough for two?” a voice from the doorway enquired.

Lester turned around, remembering in the same instant that a) he’d invited Danny Quinn to stay the night because of the road conditions and b) he was stark naked, whereas Danny had at least put on the green silk bathrobe Lester had lent him, even though it seemed to be leaving very little to the imagination.

Deciding in the space of a heartbeat that grabbing an apron to cover his nakedness would just make him look even more ridiculous, Lester simply nodded and said, “Tea?”

“Milk, one sugar,” Danny said, pulling out a chair and sitting down, clearly studiously avoiding any mention of Lester’s lack of clothes.

The fact that the only light in the kitchen was coming from outside helped and, if truth be told, Lester wasn’t particularly self-conscious about his body. He might be 40, the same age as Danny, according to the ex-policeman’s file, but he kept himself fit with a mix of tennis and squash, and he knew his muscles were trim, with no excess fat around his waist.

Danny crossed one leg over his knee and the bathrobe fell apart, revealing his cock nestling in a tangle of ginger hair. The bloke had a good body and Lester was reminded rather forcibly of why he always avoided the communal showers at work. He just hoped his own dick would play nicely and not start demanding attention – or at least not until he was safely back in the privacy of his bedroom.

He debated going off to fetch a robe then the smell of bacon distracted him. His stomach emitted a loud growl.

Danny shot him one of his irrepressible grins. “I’ll turn that lot over, you get the bread.”

Lester handed him a pair of kitchen tongs and the oven gloves, then cut and buttered four decent-sized hunks of bread, sending silent thanks to his cleaner who always made sure he had fresh bread and milk in the house. As he’d hoped, the food did a good job of settling the slight nausea that his migraines always left behind and another mug of tea helped the healing process on its way.

“Do you get ‘em often?” Danny asked, wiping his mouth on a square of kitchen roll and leaning back in the chair.

“Thankfully, no,” Lester said. “The last few weeks have been a little taxing, to put it mildly and I made the mistake of ignoring the early warning signs. Your intervention was… timely.”

“My sister was just as bad. Used to pretend it wasn’t happening – right up to the moment she went down like she’d been pole-axed.”

“I know that feeling,” Lester said ruefully. He glanced over at the clock, wondering what his chances were of getting another couple of hours’ sleep. It was 4.11am, but he had drunk two mugs of tea, which wouldn’t help.

He picked up the plates and mugs, and took them over to the sink to rinse, rather more conscious than he wanted to be of the fact that he was giving Danny an uninterrupted view of his arse. The thought of those cool blue eyes following his movements sent a wholly unwelcome rush of blood to Lester’s groin. Damn it! What the hell was the matter with him? His cock twitched unhelpfully in reply. He’d had a shit-awful few weeks and couldn’t even remember the last time he’d even had a wank, let alone felt someone’s hand on his cock other than his own. But knowing it and being able to stop his reactions were two entirely different things. He should have gone to fetch a bathrobe while the going was good.

In a desperate attempt to ignore his now half-hard cock, Lester stared out of the window. Something four-legged had gone for a walk in his garden, making tracks in the previously pristine snow, probably his neighbour’s large black and white cat. Lester set the plates on the drying rack and washed out the mugs and the teapot, trying to will his inconvenient erection under control. He was about as successful at that as he was at controlling Temple’s spending habits.

The scrape of a chair leg on the linoleum floor raised Lester’s hopes that Danny was about to retire for the night before his state of adolescent arousal became apparent to anyone other than himself. Instead, a voice said from behind him, “Pretty, isn’t it? Bet you anything Connor’ll want to build a snowman in the car park.”

“And Becker’s men will no doubt equip it with a tactical vest and a pair of thigh holsters. There are times when I swear the soldiers are worse than my kids.” Lester regretted using the words thigh holsters as soon as they’d left his mouth. With his cock in a rebellious mood he really didn’t need the image that those particular words conjured up taking root in his head.

Danny chuckled and Lester felt the other man’s warm breath raise the hairs on the back of his neck. Danny was now close enough for him to feel the brush of the silk bathrobe against his arse. “There’s a fox in your garden,” Danny commented, leaning closer and pointing out of the window.

He was right. A large, reddish-brown fox was standing in the middle of the snow-covered garden, staring up at the moon. It raised its head and let out an eerie cry, unlike the normal sharp barks that he was used to hearing.

“It’s a vixen after a mate,” Danny said.

“You’re an expert in mating foxes?” Lester asked, desperately wishing that the conversation would take a turn in a different direction – one that didn’t involve any mention of sex.

“Did a lot of stakeouts in the middle of the night when I was on the job,” Danny laughed. “Seen more foxes shagging than you’ve had lunches on expenses, mate. The female always makes that sort of noise when she’s up for it.”

Lester closed his eyes, wondering whether spilling a bowl of cold water over his groin would help. “I resent that remark, Quinn,” he said feebly.

“Do you resent this as well?” Danny asked, in an amused tone of voice as he leaned in against Lester and pressed an unmistakeably hard cock against his arse.

“If I did, you’d be collecting your P45 in the morning,” said Lester quietly, doing his best to keep his breathing under control.

“Thank God for that,” Danny laughed, slipping both arms around Lester’s waist and pulling him back against his warm body, without even the minimal cover of the bathrobe – now apparently hanging loose – coming between them. “I was beginning to think we’d have to watch that fox fucking to get you in the mood, or something.”

Lester closed his eyes. This was a bad idea, a really bad idea. He was not in the habit of having sexual encounters with colleagues: in fact the one and only time he’d broken that rule he’d ended up married, which wasn’t exactly the best precedent, but right now, his traitorous cock clearly had other ideas.

“Relax, guv,” Danny muttered, dropping a hand down to stroke Lester’s cock. “In the morning, we can both pretend it didn’t happen. I’m an ex-copper, you’re a government hatchet man, we can both play Let’s Pretend with the best of ‘em.”

Danny’s hand felt good, too bloody good. And the hard cock nestling between his arse cheeks would feel even better inside him. Lester hadn’t been fucked for a long time, but he remembered it well enough to want it again and the heat coiling in his stomach told the same story.

“I hope you have condoms and a suitable lubricant, Quinn,” he remarked, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate. “If you suggest the creative use of salad oil I shall feel bound to decline your advances.”

Danny laughed. “Never travel unprepared, that’s the Quinn family motto. My mum is the sort of woman who could produce the entire contents of her kitchen from a picnic hamper. My brother broke his wrist once and she splinted it with a couple of wooden spoons and a crepe bandage. The hospital was most impressed…” Danny’s voice trailed off into a wistful silence and Lester was reminded of the reason the man had been so keen to join the anomaly project in the first place.

He turned in Danny’s arms, their cocks pressed together. “Upstairs, Danny. I’m too old for sex on the kitchen table.”

* * * * *

Danny tore the small foil packet open with his teeth and rolled the condom down his hard dick. Lester was sprawled out on the bed on his back, one knee bent, his cock lying erect against a flat stomach that showed no sign of running to seed. The man had a good body under those flashy suits he wore like body armour. Danny hadn’t exactly planned to end up naked in bed with him when he’d offered the bloke a lift home but the sight of Lester wandering around his kitchen, seemingly wholly unconcerned by his own nakedness, had reminded Danny how long it had been since he’d enjoyed the company of anyone other than Mrs Palm and her five daughters.

Yes, he’d known Lester swung both ways. His informants inside the Home Office had heard the rumours. Lester’s last male lover had been in the Foreign Office and the liaison had ended when the man had been moved to Washington. He and his wife had lived separate lives for years, but it wasn’t until she’d felt the inclination to pursue her own extra-curricular activities that they’d agreed to separate. So, unless it just hadn’t come to anyone’s attention, it was at least six years since…

“I was last fucked approximately six and a half years ago,” Lester commented. “Are you always so transparent in bed, Danny?”

Danny felt a blush creeping up his cheeks and cursed the fair complexion he’d inherited from his mother, even though he doubted Lester would notice his discomfiture in the dimly-lit room. “I’m an honest soul, me, guv’nor. What you see is what you get.”

Lester’s eyes settled on Danny’s dick and he gave an appreciative smile. “Good, because right now I have a burning desire for a nice, uncomplicated, no-strings-attached fuck. Do you think you can manage that, Mr Quinn?”

Danny grinned. “Your call, guv.”

Lester rolled his eyes and was pleased to note that he could now do it without any attendant pain. “And lose the chirpy cockney sparrow impression. I banned the children from watching Eastenders.” He rolled over on his stomach and pillowed his head on his arms.

Danny flipped open the cap on the tube of lubricant and quickly coated his cock. He knew without needing to be told that Lester wouldn’t thank him for lengthy preparation. It wasn’t that sort of encounter. Maybe next time… Danny shook that thought off. He didn’t even know if there was going to be a next time.

He reached down and tugged at Lester’s hips. “Hands and knees. You’re going to be as tight as a gnat’s backside, and it’ll be easier for both of us that way.”

His companion laughed, but did as he’d been asked. Danny’s grin slid into a smile. Lester really did have a very nice arse, and it was going to look bloody good stretched around his dick. He rested the head of his cock against Lester’s hole and pushed. He felt Lester’s body tense up, then Lester pushed back and Danny’s cock slid inside. Danny gripped Lester’s hips hard and held him in position, allowing him to adjust to the penetration before he started moving. He slid one hand around to take hold of Lester’s cock. It twitched in his fingers and didn’t take much to coax back to full hardness.

Lester made a small noise in his throat and pressed back onto Danny’s cock, forcing it deeper inside him. Danny laughed and took the hint. Even on his hands and knees with his arse in the air, James bloody Lester still somehow managed to end up being in charge. Danny let go of Lester’s cock, needing both hands to hang onto the slim hips as he started to thrust into Lester’s body, watching as his cock slid even deeper into the tight channel. Lester was stretched around him and would be feeling the burn, but slow and gentle clearly wasn’t on the agenda. Danny let out a shaky breath and tried to find a rhythm. It was jerky at first and he wondered if he’d used enough lube, but Lester’s moans of encouragement told their own story.

Danny had a nasty feeling that if he didn’t deliver what Lester so clearly wanted he’d be getting a memo on the subject the following morning. And he’d had quite enough of those recently. With a snap of his hips, he drove himself into Lester’s body with enough force to cause a grunt. That’d do for a start. He changed the angle of his thrusts slightly. The next noise Lester emitted sounded suspiciously like a whine, although he suspected it would be hotly denied. A moment later he knew he was hitting the right spot when Lester’s hips jerked in his hands.

He stared down, mesmerised by the sight of his cock thrusting into Lester’s stretched, reddened hole. He wasn’t going to last long, not with Lester pushing back hard and moaning like something from one of the Vice Squad’s favourite Friday night DVDs. He steadied himself with one hand on Lester’s hips again and reached around to start jacking the other man’s cock, using the pre-come beading at the tip to ease his movements. A moment later, Lester gasped and his arse spasmed around Danny’s dick and he came hard over Danny’s hand. That was all Danny had been waiting for. Another two hard strokes took him over the edge, then, thighs trembling, the pair of them subsided onto the bed, narrowly avoiding the wet patch left behind by Lester’s copious release.

“Christ, mate, when did you last come?” Danny gasped, half-laughing, half-panting, as Lester’s arse continued to clench around him.

“Can’t remember,” Lester admitted.

Danny pulled out as gently as he could and wrapped the condom in a handful of tissues grabbed from a box on the bedside table before collapsing back onto his side on the bed, wondering whether he should now make another discreet withdrawal, this time in the direction of the spare room.

Lester rolled over onto his back, a half-smile on his face. “I like to cuddle after sex but I hate sleeping in a wet patch. I suggest we repair to your room instead, if you have no objection to my company.”

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a cuddler,” Danny admitted, trying – and failing – to keep the grin off his face. “Can I drive your car again tomorrow?”

“Don’t push your luck. My post-coital afterglow doesn’t extend that far.” Lester swung his legs off the bed and made his way to the guest bedroom with Danny following him.

Some time later, with Lester snuggled comfortably in his arms, Danny heard a yowl from the garden at the back of the house.

“Looks like Mr Fox has just got his end away,” he murmured.

“Spare me the Countryfile commentary and I’ll let you drive the car.” Lester sounded sleepy and contented, and Danny allowed himself to entertain a small hope that this might end up being more than a one-night stand after all.

Lester wasn’t the only one who liked to cuddle after sex.


End file.
